Uranium

Tell EPA To Stop Toxic Legacy Of Uranium Mill

October 21, 2014 Anna Mariah Tapp, www.grandcanyontrust.org Resist! health, Uranium

The Grand Canyon Trust has been pressing on multiple fronts to ensure that the White Mesa Uranium Mill – the only operating uranium mill in the United States – operates in full compliance with all laws designed to protect public and environmental health. The White Mesa Mill is located just three miles from the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s White Mesa community, on Highway 191. It is also located less than 15 miles from both Bluff and Blanding, Utah. The White Mesa Uranium Mill processes uranium from mines across the Colorado Plateau, and also extracts uranium from radioactive waste that is imported from toxic sites across North America. Now EPA has proposed a lax new regulation that will apply to the White Mesa Uranium Mill. EPA’s proposed regulation will threaten public health by eliminating enforceable emission standards for radon, reducing the amount of required reporting and monitoring, and delaying reclamation of the White Mesa Mill site.

Group Pushes Congress On Abandoned Uranium Mine Cleanup

August 22, 2014 Matthew Seeman, www.cronkitenewsonline.com Organize! Clean Up the Mines, Mining, pollution, Uranium, Water

The people behind Clean Up the Mines understand that others have been trying for years to clean up abandoned uranium mines and have mostly met with limited success. But they say that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t keep trying. The grass-roots advocacy group of environmental, Native American and other organizations launched in April with the goal of getting Congress to mandate cleanup of the more than 10,000 abandoned mines in the country, at least 500 of which are on the Navajo Nation. “This needs to be a federal standard,” said Klee Benally, a Navajo who is a member of Clean Up the Mines. “It needs to be the highest that we can possibly have to address these toxic abandoned uranium mines.” Key to that effort is a proposed piece of legislation, the Uranium Exploration and Mining Accountability Act, that would require a complete inventory of the thousands of abandoned mines in the U.S. It would be the first bill specifically addressing uranium mining, said Charmaine White Face, who drafted the proposal and is coordinator for Defenders of the Black Hills. She said Clean Up the Mines formed after several native communities in South Dakota shared concerns that abandoned mines had contaminated their water supply.

Uranium Poisoning Wells, Navajos Drive Miles For Drinking Water

August 11, 2014 Brandon Loomis, www.azcentral.com Educate! health, pollution, Uranium, Water

Teeth clack involuntarily and tools rattle on the floor board under the backseat of Milton Yazzie's Silverado as he and his frail mother bounce along the washboard-creased dirt road from their home. For mile after dusty mile, rise after rutted descent, the truck rocks toward the dry river and then Flagstaff, the screech of Led Zeppelin on the radio inside and of a high-desert wind outside. Three plastic barrels bounce along in the truck bed. It's water day on the reservation. Twice a week, the Yazzies, 57-year-old Milton and 83-year-old Della, come down off their lonely hill on the Navajo Reservation's western side and point themselves toward the city for the clean water they need to keep living. For ages, they drank from a well less than a mile from their home. Then they learned that poison lurked there. Uranium is gurgling up all over Navajo country. At least three Yazzies have died of kidney ailments, a common result of chronic exposure to uranium. Federal environmental officials warned against drinking more. Milton learned to conserve, using an outhouse across their driveway and leaving the tank-supplied indoor plumbing to Della, because of her failing eyesight.

Victory For Navajo Grassroots Groups Over Uranium Mining

July 24, 2014 Leona Morgan, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Environment, health, Nuclear Energy, Uranium

oncerned Diné Citizens, a coalition of Navajo grassroots organizations and residents opposed to uranium mining, applaud the Navajo Nation Council’s vote to close a loophole created by a previous uranium mining legislation Tuesday (7/22/14) which had authorized access over Navajo Trust Land to a uranium mining company Uranium Resources Incorporated (URI). “If Uranium Resources were allowed unlimited access over Trust Land in Churchrock, that would have potentially opened up new mining on URI’s other properties in northwestern New Mexico,” said Jonathan Perry, President of Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining. Perry continues, “Because these kinds of companies target areas adjacent to the Nation, but not on Navajo Indian Country, our own laws prohibiting new uranium mining cannot protect people in the checkerboard lands.”

Uranium Mine Clean-up Movement Claims Victory, Vows To Go National

June 12, 2014 Talli Nauman, www.cipamericas.com Resist! Congress, Law, Protest, Uranium

With the imminent release of a congressionally mandated report on the legacy of abandoned uranium mines in the United States, peace and environmental justice advocates are rallying for a nationwide clean-up. Nearly 100 people from both grassroots and high-profile environmental groups across the country gathered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, May 1-5 to strategize about reducing the devastating role of uranium mining in the nuclear energy cycle and to challenge the growth of other non-renewable energy industries. Taking part in the Third Extreme Energy Extraction Summit, activists from throughout the uranium mining territory of the Inter-Mountain West linked up to inform themselves of opportunities for working together on a shared agenda. Chief among prospects for progress they discussed was the recent $5.15 billion settlement of a landmark lawsuit against Kerr-McGee and its parent Anadarko Petroleum Corp., for fraud in the abandonment of some 2,700 uranium and other hazardous and mining sites in 47 states. The U.S. Justice Department, lead plaintiff in the case, announced the settlement on April 3, noting that $4.4 billion of it will go to fund environmental recovery and related claims, in what it called “the largest payment ever for the clean-up of environmental contamination.”

Uranium Mining Protesters At Cameco Shareholders Meeting

May 30, 2014 Wendy Winiewski, www.globalnews.ca Resist! Cameco, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Protest, Shareholder activism, Uranium

The agenda for Cameco’s annual general meeting took a turn Wednesday when a group of protesters showed up at Cameco’s head office. The focus shifted from updating shareholders on the financial future of the company to the ethics and environmental impact of uranium mining in northern Saskatchewan. The protest of about 25 people was organized by members of the English River First Nation but was attended by people from all over the province including Lumsden, Outlook, Standing Buffalo, Saskatoon and an outspoken woman from La Ronge. “All we will have done is increase the amount of radioactivity on the land,” said Kirsten Scansen, of La Ronge, Sask. “It’s making our food, our land base, our wild meats, our fish, our plants, our berries, making them more dangerous in our lives and decreasing our livelihood, decreasing our health, decreasing our well being.” The protesters biggest concerns are the radioactive tailings ponds left in the north and the high grade nuclear waste being disposed of.

Oglala Lakotas Oppose Expansion Of Uranium Mining Near Reservation

May 13, 2014 Conor Gallagher, www.earthfirstjournal.org Resist! Food and Agriculture, Indigenous Rights, Uranium

In 2008, Debra White Plume, an Oglala Lakota environmental justice activist, received a piece of mail with no return address. Inside was a 1989 letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from John Peterson, an exploration geologist who had worked on what is now the Crow Butte uranium mine in northwestern Nebraska. In the letter, Peterson describes how uranium mining in the area would almost certainly contaminate the regional water supply if it went forward. “I believe certain aspects of the geology of the Crow Butte uranium deposits have been deliberately overlooked or suppressed so that mining could proceed and profits be gained regardless of the effect upon local ground water quality,” he wrote. Peterson’s warnings were disregarded, mining at the site began two years later, in 1991, and it continues to this day. Now, the mine is on the verge of expanding. Cameco Corporation, a Canadian mining company, is seeking permits to create two new mine sites north and west of its current location. If approved by federal regulators, Cameco’s operations would swallow up an additional 8,300 acres of the prairie hills.

Take Action To Clean Up The Mines!

April 28, 2014 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.alternet.org Resist! Environment, Organizing, Uranium

The findings of the most recent IPCC report are sobering. We have 15 years to mitigate climate disaster. It is up to us to make a major transition to a carbon-free, nuclear-free energy economy within that timeframe. Big Energy and our plutocratic government are not going to do it without effective pressure from a people-powered movement. Earth Day is no longer about celebration. We are making Mother Earth sick by using extreme methods to extract fuels from her mountains and from beneath her surface and by massive spills of oil, chemicals and radiation. We must mobilize ourselves to take action now to create clean renewable energy and to restore the damage we have done. More people are getting this concept. This year, there are several major campaigns around Earth Day, for example the Global Climate Convergence and the Cowboy Indian Alliance camp in Washington, DC. We celebrated Earth Day by launching a new national campaign to clean up the thousands of abandoned uranium mines (AUMs) scattered throughout the Great Plains and West Coast.

Uranium Stockpiled At Mine Near Grand Canyon

April 26, 2014 Laurel Morales, www.fronterasdesk.org Educate! Food and Agriculture, Uranium

Mining companies have recently cut back uranium production around the Grand Canyon National Park because the price has dropped 25 percent in the last year. But this week Energy Fuels announced it will keep mining at one site near the park and stockpile the ore to sell later. Northern Arizona has the highest-grade uranium deposits in the country. The ore is conveniently contained underground in what are called “breccia pipes.” While Energy Fuels waits for the market to recover, it plans to store uranium at the Pinenut Mine. That has Roger Clark of the Grand Canyon Trust worried. “The cumulative effects of uranium ore of contaminated water both on the surface and in the mine shaft potentially is polluting the aquifer beneath it,” Clark said. “All of those things are cumulative effects that were not anticipated by the original federal environmental review, which really needs to be redone.”

Earth Day Launch Of Campaign To Clean Up Toxic Mines

April 21, 2014 Clean Up the Mines, www.popularresistance.org Educate! Environment, health, Nuclear Energy, Uranium

More than 10,000 abandoned uranium mines (AUMs) are located throughout the U.S. primarily in the Western States, and more than 10 million people live within a 50 mile radius of an abandoned uranium mine. “These hazardous abandoned uranium mines poison the air, land and water. The health effects are tremendous,” said Charmaine White Face, a volunteer with Clean Up The Mines and Coordinator of Defenders of the Black Hills. “Currently no laws require clean up of these dangerous abandoned Uranium mines. We are letting Congress know: It is time to clean up the mines!” Ms. White Face concluded. South Dakota has at least 272 abandoned, open-pit Uranium mines: 169 AUMs in the Southwestern Black Hills near Edgemont, and 103 AUMS in the Northwest corner near Buffalo. The Northern Great Plains Region of Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota contains more than 2,000 plus AUMs.

Protect Our Sacred Water!

March 21, 2014 Ben Whitford, www.theecologist.org Resist! Emvironment, Energy, Extraction, Uranium

The curse of Uranium has fallen once again on the Black Hills of South Dakota, ancestral home to the Lakota Indians - now fighting a massive mining project that threatens land, rivers and groundwater. But this time, writes Ben Whitford, the Lakota are not alone ... To the Lakota Indians of America's Great Plains, the Black Hills of South Dakota are sacred ground - the site, legend has it, where the first humans entered the world. Today, the craggy, tree-lined mountains are known to the Lakota as "the heart of everything that is", and remain home to countless burial places and ancient ceremonial sites. Unfortunately for the Lakota, however, the Black Hills are also peppered with valuable mineral deposits, including rich veins of uranium ore.

Stop ‘Slow Genocide’: Time To Clean Up The Mines

March 21, 2014 Amy Goodman, www.democracynow.org Resist! Environment, Nuclear Energy, Uranium

We have been challenged with resource colonization in this area for many years. It’s really the battle—the geopolitics here are rooted in racism. They’re rooted in the corporate greed that we continue to face this day. More than 20,000 Diné, or Navajo, people have been forcibly relocated from our homelands because of Peabody Coal’s activities on Black Mesa, and we have an estimated more than 1,000 abandoned uranium mines on our lands. In 2005, the Diné, or Navajo, Nation decided to ban all uranium-mining activities on our lands. But today, we have tribal council representatives who are really just selling our future away and trying to lift this ban. And so we, at this point, are in a situation where there have been no meaningful health studies on the impacts of uranium mining in our community.

Toxic Legacy: Uranium Mining In New Mexico

February 21, 2014 Dahr Jamail, www.truthout.org Educate! Government, Health Care, Uranium

In New Mexico, a disproportionate number of unremediated uranium mine and mill sites are on lands traditionally used and occupied by the Navajo. Thus, a disproportionate amount of pollution from uranium sites occurs in Navajo communities, so the Navajo continue to bear the brunt of the health problems associated with these toxic sites. Navajo families have bathed in, showered in, washed clothes in, played in and drunk radioactive water. Their men worked in the mines while breathing carcinogenic gases then spread radionuclides throughout their families simply by returning home from work. But it wasn't until the spill was designated as a superfund site in 1983 that the Navajo who were being irradiated and sickened for more than 30 years learned the truth.

Uranium Mine Troubles Native American Groups

February 9, 2014 Samuel Nelson Gilbert, www.aljazeera.com Educate! Environment, Indigenous Rights, Mining, Uranium

Mounds of radioactive waste dot the eastern portion of the Navajo Nation in the US state of New Mexico. The earthen monoliths contain contaminated material from the more than 250 abandoned uranium mines that once provided the raw materials for the US nuclear complex. As the Cold War ended, so did the demand for uranium. Yet growing international investment in nuclear energy has led to the prospect of renewed uranium mining in New Mexico, including the controversial new Roca Honda mine located on Mount Taylor, an area considered sacred by the Navajo and Pueblo peoples of the southwestern United States. "If developed, Roca Honda will be a huge underground mine with tremendous impacts," said environmental attorney Eric Jantz. "This mine could destroy people's water, land, their places of worship - all for the purposes of funnelling profits to a Canadian company that is in turn selling it to Korea."

Victory! Virginia Uranium Backs Off Mine Plan For Now

December 22, 2013 Staff, www.beyondnuclear.org Resist! Energy, Environment, Uranium

Virginia Uranium, the company hoping to mine the Coles Hill site in Virginia, has suspended plans for the project. Despite investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in junkets to France and Canada for Virginia legislators and other lobbying efforts, the company was defeated by a large and diverse mass movement of opposition in the state. Newly elected VA governor, Terry McAuliffe, has also expressed opposition to the plan which would have required the lifting of a long-standing moratorium against uranium mining in Virginia. Opponents and critics, and even an analysis conducted by the National Academy of Sciences, raised serious doubts about the environment in Virginia, both natural and regulatory. Citing its wet climate and recent episodes of violent weather, opponents vigorously opposed the plan. The threat to drinking water, wine country and farm land also provided a compelling reason to stop the project. No regulatory infrastructure exists in Virginia suitable to effectively monitor a project of this kind.

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